


Failure to Integrate

by minnabird



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Multi, either defining friendship could be seen as a ship if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-02
Updated: 2012-01-02
Packaged: 2017-11-09 12:06:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/455264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minnabird/pseuds/minnabird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Holmeses have always been different from others.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Failure to Integrate

_“Failure to integrate well with his peers.”_

A phrase that had been sent home, in many forms, in reference to both of the Holmes boys. Their teachers – the ones who cared, anyway – wondered why their parents never took them to see a psychologist. Certainly they had the money for it.

What they didn’t know was that it was something of a family trait. None of them saw anything wrong with it. The Holmeses had simply always been superior, and there was little point bending to fit society’s rules. Loners and freaks, from a less kind perspective.

Nothing ever changed, not really. Sherlock gained a self-diagnosis of “sociopath” to explain away his standoffishness; Mycroft formed an informal society for others who wished to make connections without having to socialize too heavily (“Hermits United,” John said laughingly when he found out in later years, then looked incredulous when no one got the reference).

Even when Sherlock gained a friend in John, he was still terrible with people: cold, insensitive, and rarely able to be persuaded to give a damn if he steamrollered over people. John served as a sort of barometer by which Sherlock could judge the social acceptability of his actions, but he rarely changed them if they didn’t truly upset John (and even then he often persisted in those habits which annoyed John the most).

And even when Mycroft’s PA left his employ for bigger and better things with his unspoken but nevertheless perfectly understood blessing, they only met once or twice a month. Even then it was more often for scintillating conversation over dinner or a coffee than anything that led anywhere past first date territory. Mycroft had always found Eleanor’s company in equal measures soothing and electrifying; she, in turn, regarded him with unfailing affection that was clear even when her words contained barbs. No new PA could ever replace her. He was glad of that fact, if he was honest; more than one such person in his life would be far too many.

And so life went on in its usual way, or as usual as it was possible to be if you were a Holmes. Looking from the outside in, many might say they lived cold and meaningless existences.

But if you asked any of those involved, their preferred variant of “piss off” would be the answer.


End file.
